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Founders, statesmen and world leaders — cited from their collected works.
The figures
There were many reasons for believing this whisper, not only from his personal appearance, but from the undeniable freedom which he enjoyed over all others, and his apparent consciousness of being something more than a slave to his master.
These two men were both advanced in years; there were the silver locks of the master, and the bald and toil-worn brow of the slave--superior and inferior here, powerful and weak here, but equals before God.
In a free State, a master thus complaining without cause, might be told by his ostler: “Sir, I am sorry I cannot please you, but since I have done the best I can and fail to do so, your remedy is to dismiss me.” But here the ostler must…
However groundless the complaint, Barney must stand, hat in hand, lips sealed, never answering a word in explanation or excuse.
Their beds were far softer and cleaner than those of his human cattle.
The poor slave, on his hard pine plank, scantily covered with his thin blanket, slept more soundly than the feverish voluptuary who reclined upon his downy pillow.
Alas, this immense wealth, this gilded splendor, this profusion of luxury, this exemption from toil, this life of ease, this sea of plenty were not the pearly gates they seemed to a world of happiness and sweet content.
It was something to me that I could share these odors with the winds, even if the meats themselves were under a more stringent monopoly.
There were pride, pomp, and luxury on the one hand, servility, dejection, and misery on the other.
The contrast between the condition of the slaves and that of their masters was marvelously sharp and striking.
There is no kind of work which really requires a better supply of food to prevent physical exhaustion than the field work of a slave.
The songs of the slaves represented their sorrows, rather than their joys.
The remark in the olden time was not unfrequently made, that slaves were the most contented and happy laborers in the world, and their dancing and singing were referred to in proof of this alleged fact; but it was a great mistake to…
They breathed the prayer and complaint of souls overflowing with the bitterest anguish.
That slave who had the courage to stand up for himself against the overseer, although he might have many hard stripes at first, became while legally a slave virtually a freeman.
The doctrine that submission to violence is the best cure for violence did not hold good as between slaves and overseers.
A look, a word, a gesture, accidental or intentional, never failed to be taken as impudence when he was in the right mood for such an offense.
Then I found, too, that there were puzzling exceptions to this theory of slavery, in the fact that all black people were not slaves, and all white people were not masters.
Besides, I could not tell how anybody could know that God made black people to be slaves.
